Advice from friends and family is the most trusted source of travel planning information. Knowing this, VISIT FLORIDA created our Share a Little Sunshine platform to engage Florida’s more than 18 million residents in supporting the state’s economy by inviting their friends and family to visit the Sunshine State.

Since launching Share a Little Sunshine in 2010, Floridians have embraced the campaign – sending more than 90,000 invitations to date. While we are understandably pleased with this level of engagement, VISIT FLORIDA wanted to determine how successful the program has been at actually converting invitation recipients into Florida visitors.

In August, VISIT FLORIDA surveyed 500 randomly sampled people who had sent an invitation through Share a Little Sunshine in the past year and discovered some interesting results. Over half of the respondents (52%) had someone travel to Florida after receiving an invitation from them and nearly 15% of the people that visited Florida after receiving an invitation had not previously considered visiting. In addition, more than two-thirds (67%) of the residents who sent invitations traveled within Florida after participating in the campaign.

When asked what motivated them to send a Share a Little Sunshine invitation, respondents’ reasons fell into three main categories:

Love of Florida (I love what Florida has to offer and wanted to share it-35%, share wonder/beauty of Florida-23%, share great travel opportunities-21%)

Economy (to help Florida’s economy-14%, to create jobs-7%)

The majority of those who took the survey (86%) agreed with the statement “I believe that I can impact Florida’s economy through my travel and the travel of my friends and family.” In looking deeper at the data, respondents who were motivated to participate in Share a Little Sunshine either “to help the economy” or “to create jobs” agreed even more strongly with the statement than the rest of those surveyed.

Most respondents (84%) indicated that they would be “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to participate in the Share a Little Sunshine program again. Among those who said they are “very likely” to participate again, the most popular future motivations are: 1) to share the great travel opportunities in the state of Florida; 2) love what Florida has to offer and want to share it; and 3) to share the wonder and beauty of Florida.

The survey results clearly show that Share A Little Sunshine works. Not only does the program motivate Floridians to serve as advocates in helping to promote tourism, but it encourages them to get out and enjoy the Sunshine State for themselves. We’ve also seen that while deals and sweepstakes may create interest and catch their attention, it is a love of Florida and a belief that traveling helps our economy and creates jobs that keeps the message going.

To learn more about how you can get involved in the Share a Little Sunshine program, please click here.